Nowadays it is of great importance for pre-service teachers to be

well informed of and be proficient in using the latest digital technologies.

Teachers cannot afford to become stagnant in their knowledge and must
strive to stay up to date with the ever changing digital world. Technology
is one of the best tools teachers have to engage students if used correctly.
This project was my first insight into programming as well as web
design. As challenging as it seemed in the start, I thoroughly enjoyed this
journey of learning a set of new skills. By following a process of
abstraction, data collection, specification, algorithm and implementation,
the task was broken down into smaller pieces and became a lot more
manageable.
Building the prototype took a bit of getting used to the materials. I
used Lego Mindstorms and I thought it would be easy to build a robot
however the pieces connect together in a different way than the
traditional Lego and it was harder than I thought. Once the material was
explored for a while, a basic prototype was created to achieve the purpose
of the task. The programming itself was easy to grasp as it was a matter
of sequencing a set of graphic coding blocks. However being
inexperienced in this area, it took a lot of trial and errors to figure out
what speed to use, how many rotations were required as well as trying to
overcome the limitations of the device. Due to the wide wheels at the
back, the turns were very inconsistent and was quite a frustrating part of
the process. After many attempts and adjustments to reduce the

inconsistencies, I succumbed to the fact that the device is limited to a

certain extend and to not let the inconsistencies become a hindrance. I
decided to do a much simpler task than what I envisioned in the start as
the EV3 wasnt created to make complex robotic tasks but simply to teach
the basics of programming.
Presenting my presentation online was a very rewarding task. After
long hours of working on it, it was such a good achievement at the end
when it all came together. Weebly is a great tool for beginners to learn the
basics of web design. It is very user friendly and once I got my head
around how to navigate around it, I quickly discovered some tricks and
shortcuts such as using the snipping tool in Ms Word to save my visuals as
.jpg and then simply upload them as an image. I also enjoyed
experimenting with all the features that are available in the free version. I
can see myself as a teacher having a Weebly site with tabs for the
different subjects so that my students can go on there and find links and
resources for their assessments and make available other online learning
material for them.
Back to my digital technologies project, I would have liked to have
more time to explore the EV3 and make more complex programming, and
also to find a way to attach it to a timer so it could start automatically at a
set time. I have no doubt that I will be doing further experiments with the
EV3 in the future as it turned out to be a lot of fun. I also experimented
and familiarised myself with Scratch, which was also so much fun, it really
satisfied my creative side as you can create any kind of Sprite and make it

move, dance, exercise and all sort of crazy things. I am very pleased that
this assignment opened this opportunity and I feel prepared to teach it in
the future.
It is an incredible notion that until a few years ago robots were
things of students' imagination, dreaming and role playing and now some
primary students get the privilege of building and programming a real
robot and have access to many digital technologies. Children are digitally
savvy from a very young age and they need to become aware of the
potential risks associated with the online world. As the use of technology
rises in schools, the issue of internet safety needs to be addressed by
having e-policies. Students need to gain the knowledge and the ability to
recognize when content is inappropriate and to report it to an adult. This
is imperative as it is stipulated in the Australian Curriculum that by the
end of year 2 students should be able to create and organise ideas using
digital technology and share them with known people in safe online
environments (ACARA 2015). There are some useful resources to educate
students about cyber safety. Teachers need to shape students minds with
the ability to look at images in a critical way and what they mean and how
to interpret them. Pinto and Younie (2015, p.232) suggested the idea of
teaching students how to be good digital citizens as well as equip them
with digital wisdom to enjoy these amazing and wonderful sources of
information that we have available at our fingertips.
As our world becomes more and more dominated by technology and
robotic agents, it is imperative that students are equipped with the

knowledge they need to become proficient users of the latest digital

technology to become successful in the workforce of the future. This can
only be achieved if the teachers themselves are proficient and integrate
digital technologies in their teaching. Before this subject both robotics and
web design were things in my too hard basket and this goes to show that
if you are willing to learn, anything can be achieved whether you are in
high school or a teacher with 20 years experience.

Reference
Acara (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority).
(2015). Digital Technologies. Retrieved from:
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/technologies/digitaltechnologies/curriculum/f-10?layout=1
Younie, Sarah; Leask, Marilyn; Burden, Kevin (2015). Teaching and
Learning with ICT in the Primary School. London, UK: Routledge